Young, handsome men of fighting age staged a die-in in Times Square to tell Trump they oppose deals with Russia. “Deals cost lives,” they proclaim. How touching. How brave. How wonderfully convenient to make that declaration while lying on the pavement in Manhattan rather than in a trench in Donbas. I would argue that NOT making deals costs lives. And unlike a theatrical death in Times Square, those deaths are very real. Just imagine how many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian lives might have been saved had the Istanbul peace negotiations in the spring of 2022 not been derailed. I have always believed, and always will, that a bad deal is preferable to an even worse war — especially one that grows more disastrous, more hopeless, and more suicidal for Ukraine with every passing day. And to these handsome young patriots, I have a modest suggestion: enlist in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. If you're so determined to stand with Ukraine, try standing in a Ukrainian trench instead of lying down in New York. After all, it's remarkably easy to demand that a war continue when the only thing you're risking is getting your designer jeans dirty on the pavement of Times Square. Dying for Ukraine is apparently a noble cause — provided it's someone else's job.